Bernanke’s interlocutors may be asking about economic projections but what lies behind the questions is concern (among Republicans) and hope (among Democrats) that if the projections are bad, Bernanke’s Fed will do something.

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said, “We must also stand ready to do even more if needed to best achieve our statutory goals.”

On the other hand, there are those like Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, who said in a speech that

“were we to go down the path to further accommodation at this juncture, we would not simply be pushing on a string but would be viewed as an accomplice to the mischief that has become synonymous with Washington.”

More action on the part of the Fed is seen as an assisst for President Obama’s reelection. But political considerations should be secondary to questions of effectiveness and here we have a clear answer.

The Feds previous two efforts to stimulate the economy through quantitative easing have been dismal failures so why consider it a third time?

Just listen to Louis Woohill at Forbes: “Given the numbers, it is truly shocking that the Fed, despite the thousands of economists on its payroll, seems to not have noticed that QE2 was a fiasco. If they had, they would not now be making noises about a possible QE3.”